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Lincoln The Emancipator 



J O H N L. L O V E 



• FEB J ( 



Oh make Thou us, through centuries long, 
In peace secure, in justice strong; 
Around our gift of freedom draw 
The safeguards of Thy righteous law: 
And, cast in vSome diviner mould, 
Let the new cycle shame the old- 

Whittier . 

Western Age Print, Langston, Okla. 



3Liuraln Cl)r Cmaunpatov 



AN 

A 1) 1) R I-: s s 

BY 

JOHN L. LOVE 



Delivered Before the Excelsior Clvb, Guthrie, Okla,, 
February 12, 1909. 



Lincoln was, first of all, God's man, raised up to 
meet a orreat emergency. He might have worn 
some other name, but without such a leader, it may 
almost be said, America could not have fulfilled her 
destiny. - William G. Frost 



BY TRANSFER 

• AN J- •:..'. -HI I, • 



V 



¥'r is the clear and iiulisputable teaching of human history 
* that in all contests between the forces which make for 
freedom or for truth and those which seek to establish or 
perpetuate oppression or error, the former ultimately tri- 
umph. Clear and important is the lesson also that in all 
such contests, the friends of freedom, whether of thought or 
of person, must exercise supreme patience and the largest 
faith; that, while cherishing and lending the most enthu- 
siastic aid and encouragement to the radical forces which en- 
list themsehes in the cause of liberty, it is prudent also to 
set high value upon the conservative forces that work to the 
same end, and even to reckon often the real beneficence of 
ratlically hostile forces. It was a far cry from Nero to Con- 
stantine, from the Waldensian heretics to Martin Luther, or 
from the Missouri compromise to the Proclamation of Eman- 
cipation. The tires of Smithfield, the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes and the Dred Scott decision were not intended to 
infuse hope into the cause of freedom. These are historical 
proofs of the great truth so superbly expressed by Lowell: 

Careless seems tlie great Avenger; liistory's pages 
but record 

One tle;itli — grapple in the darkness, 'twixt old sys- 
tems and the Word; 

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong foiever on 
the throne, 

Yes that scaffold sways the future, and, behind 
the dim unknown, 

Standeth God within the siiadow. 
Truly, if ever within the shadow of a great cause. Ciod 
stood 

"Keeping watch above his own," 
it was during that mighty contest over African slavei\- whidi 
was waged in the United States from Washington to Lin- 
coln. And it is my faith that 'within the shallow" of the 
great ^ause of the Negro people in this country, He still 



4 
stands, and will yet confirm the beautiful creed of Tennyson 

That nothing walk.s with aimless feet; 
That not one life shall be destroyed, 
Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God has made the pile complete. 

Recently a member of Congress, who seems to wish to 
uncU) what it took nearly a century to accomplish, referred 
to the question of Negro citizenship and Negro suffrage as 
one which involved "the greatest problem in the domestic 
life of the Republic." If he will a-ead his country's history 
correctly, he will discover that, after the great problem of 
the formation of the government u as partially solved, the 
•ole and only great problem in the domestic life of the Repub- 
lic related to the freedom and enfranchisement of the African 
peoples who lived within its borders; that all of the efforts to 
defeat these in the shape of compromise, evasion and defiance 
came to naught, and that the men and forces that have ar- 
rayed themselves against the realization of the principles of 
the Declaration of Independence are not among the most 
pleasing and illustrious recollections of the Republic. 

The conflict with slavery in the United States was one 
of the most stupendous ever washed in the history of the 
world. It was not simply a moral conflict. Had it been on- 
ly such, it would have been shortlived and the issue plainly 
seen from the beginning. It was more than a political con- 
flict. That its political character added to its stubbornessi 
is plainly evident; for the political advantaf;e or disadvan- 
tage which it was to sections, parties and men, rendered it 
difficult to deal with in a popular form of governmc nt. 
Clay's geographical compromises, like Webster's 7th of March 
speech, testify to its great political bearing. Ambition and 
the desire for power often play havoc with a great cause- 
Slavei'V could satisfy the one and bestow the other. Into 
this temptation fell many of whom the world has said: 
"IJlot out his name, tiieii, record one lost soul more, 
One tasked more declined, one more footpath untrod. 
One more devil's trlumpli and sorrow.for angt^ls. 
One wrong more to man; one more insult to tlod.'* 



Neither was shivery sitnply an i.t<i\i)\in (|iics!i()n It was 
indeed decidedly such. Shivc hilxir was a very persistent 
and reckonahle factor in tiie history of America from the set- 
tlement of Jamestown to the surrender at Appomattok. It 
had cultivated and ruined farms; it had built magnificent 
cities and highways; it had created and nurtured a pam- 
pered, carel.-ss and soulless aristocracy which guarded jeal- 
ously its privileges and its power; it had also enriched a large 
trading element of the population and was therefore tied to 
the purse-strings of the Republic, which made it a danaer- 
ous thing to fool with. In short, slavery ramified the whole 
scheme of a large and powerful section of the nation — from the 
dressing room and parlor of the mansion hou.se to the cotton- 
gin and tobacco barn of the plantation. It was en- 
trenched behind law, custom, contract, and cupidity. The 
force which attacks such a citadel must be powerful, indeed, 
if it expects to take it. 

The conflict embraced all of these considerations — moral, 
political, economic and social. It involved one more ele- 
ment, which was of the very first importance — the element 
of u.\cK. From the morning of the world, when the curtain 
of history begins to rise upon the activities and struggles of 
men, tlowii to the present moment, the element of racial dif- 
ference has been a perennial and persistent cause of conflict. 
Wnerever we view it, whether along the Nile, upon the 
shores of the .Mediterranean, at Quebec, or at V'ladivostok. it 
is the same inexorable and persistent force, which cannot be 
ignored and must be reckoned with. White servitude in A- 
merica was bound naturally to disappear sooner or later, bui 
the spirit which would expl(;it the African was not to be 
broken, except by a cataclysm brought about by the union 
of the two unconquerable forces of Freedom and Xec'esslty. 

Such then was the nature of the slavery conflict which 
occupied the stage of American politics from the establish- 
ment of the Ordiance of 1787 to the adoption of the Thir- 
teenth Amendment, whereon men would act their parts and 
pass away while the play went on awaiting its protagonist. 
The contest was engaged in by men of varied temperaments 



varied qualities of soul and head, and of varied ambition?. 
It called for the display of the highest forms of judgement, 
cunning, heroism and sacrifice Its rewards were honor, 
fame, ostracism, and death. 

It is natural that, in contemplating the great struggle, 
the mind should be prone to dwell long and rever -ntly upon 
those who, scorning 

"I he .soft n 11(1 llnwei-y WDi'ds" 

of fame, gave themselves unreservedly to the moral side of 
the conflict and thus gave to their country and to their age 
the sweetest memoiies and the most lasting embellishment. 
What a galaxy of Heroes, (xreat Spirits, and Martyrs they 
make! Lundy, Lovejoy, Garrison, Phillips, Sumner, and 
John Brown! 

That was an ominous day for the slave system, when 
Garrison, out of the deep consecration of his soul to the 
moral cause, cried out: "T will be as harsh as truth, and as 
uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish 
to think, or speak, oi- write with moderation Urge me not 
to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earn- 
est — 1 will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not re- 
treat a single step— AND I WILL I^E HEARD." 
Than this, there is nothing finer in all history. 

"He would be the tongue of this wide land 
iMu.st string iiis harp with chords of sturdy iron, 
And strike it witli a toil-imbrowned hand." 

I^»ut the moral Grusader alone was impotent against the 
powerful octopus of oppression and greed. 

About throe m xitlis after this fine fuliiiination of Gar- 
I'ison, Abrahan) Lincoln, a tall, thoughtful, dreamy youth, 
went forth upon the western pi'airie in search of employ- 
ment. This he found in the shape of helper on a flat-boat 
which was making its w; y o\er the western rivers to New 
Orleans, then the metropolis of the southwest and the most 
dreadful sla\e m.art in the world Here he beheld slavery 
in its most loathsome form William H. Ilerndon, his law 
paitnei- and life long Iriend, thus tells the story of what hap- 
pened as related by his companion on his trip: 



"At that time and place, Linculn was inailc an anti slavery 
man. He saw a slave, a beautiful mulatto ^irl, sold at aue- 
tion. She was felt over, pinched, trotted arcund to show t.» 
the bidders that the said article was sound etc. 1/meolii 
walked awaj' from that sad inhuman scene with a deep feel- 
ing of unsmotherable hate. He said to John Hanks this: 
"By God! if ever I get a chance to hit that instiJution, I'll 
hit hard, John." 

This incitleiit in Lincoln's lite has always impressed me 
profoundly, and the more I dwell upon it the more it seems 
to reveal the great dominant passion of his soul, and to ex- 
plain his methods in his later career which to some may n.»t 
seem so clear. Here was a soul that wanted A C'HAXCK to 
do a great good At this time Lincoln was not very much 
versed in the political history of his country. He had per- 
haps become somewhat familiar with the career of Henry 
Clay, his early beau ideal of a statesman, and may have had 
some appreciation of the adroit skill of this great political 
strategist. But here in the presence of this great infamy he 
saw instinctively, that its destruction would turn finally up- 
on CHANCE, and his whole career is one of patient, cau- 
tious seeking for that chance. 

Thus in 1831, in the third year of the "reign" of An- 
drew Jackson, Garrison — the Crusader — imfurled t h e 
"standard of emancipation in the eyes of the nation within 
sight of Bunker Hill and in the birth place of liberty," and 
standing in the gateway of the Louisiana country, and on 
the great highway of the West, which within a few years 
would be the battle ground of Slavery and Freedom. Abra- 
ham Lincoln, the future Emancipator, the practical politi- 
cian, resolved if ever he got a chance to hit the institution 
of slavery, to ''hit hard." 

The election of Andrew .Jackson to the presidency in 
l<S2fi»,was a most fortunate event for the cause of freedom. 
It marked a new epoch in the development of political and 
economic thought. Crude and rustic and attended by some 
of the coarse characteristics of frontierism, the transition, 
nevertheless, ushered in an era of robust health, of virility 
and strength, of radical though native initiative. In his 



8 

Commemoration Ode, Lowell says of Lincoln: 

For him her old world moulds aside she ohrew, 

And choosing sweet clay from the breast 

Of the unexhausted West, 

With stutY untainted shaped a hero new, 

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 

While this estimate is especially applicable to Lincoln, it is 
in general true of the men of the Jacksonian epoch. They 
were of a new and refreshing brand of statemanship— repre- 
sentatives of the New West, untrammelled b}' traditions and 
imbued with the hopes and the aspirations which the limit- 
less area of the western wilderness and prairie awakened. 
The period of forty years of national life which preceded 
Jackson was guided by men whose ideas and thoughts were 
cast in the European mould. They had, after encountering 
many difficulties, successfully elaborated and put in opera- 
tion the scheme of federal union by the method ©f compro- 
mise. They had averted appalling domestic and foreign 
dangers and had launched the Ship of State safely upon the 
bosom of a placid sea, whose bed was so mined with com- 
promises and reservations as to awaken the most frightful 
alarms. They had, it is true, in the latter days of their re- 
gime received one recruit from the New West. Clay blazed 
the way for those who were to follow him. He had the dash 
and boldness of a Lochinvar, but in his zeal to pacify the 
differences of the East and South on the question of the tar- 
iff and slavery to the advantage of the West, he carried the 
spirit of compromise to the very verge of the precipice. 
Jackson with his rough and ready methods prevented the 
catastrophe. He cleared the ship of the old and skillful 
crew and with new men at the wheel and at the rigging 
steered for the open sea, to attack on the one side what he 
conceived to be the unscrupulous money power of the North 
and on the other, the real defiant slave-born sedition of the 
South. 

IMany circumstances combined to bring the slavery 
question into politics during the Jacks >nian era. la 1831, 
Garrison, as already shown, sounded the alarm of emancipa- 



tion and Nat Turner made \'irtrini:i (|ualvO. In IHIi.'i, the 
year of emancipation in tlio Miitisli iMiipiic. the Arnorican 
Anti-Slavery Society was fonncMl. In isMii. ('allii)un ami 
his band of extremists, who were l)e{j;innin<z; to take singular 
fright at every reference to shvvery. actually popularized the 
slavery agitation by their ruthless attempt to gag it. The 
next year marks the Hegira of Fredrick Douglass and wit- 
nessed the murder of Elijah P. Lovejov which brought 
Phillips into tlie anti-slavery arena. And in the same year, 
a few months before the martydom of Lovejov, Abraham 
Lincoln introduced in the Illinois legislature a memorial for 
the abolition of slavery in the District of Columljia. 

Here Lincoln took his first pf)litical position on the 
question of slavery. He was a very practical ma).. He 
• never attempted the impossible. Some would make him a 
dreamer, wh(>. under the spell of the consciousness of a great 
mission, looked athwart the future to some "far off di\'ine 
event" in wiiich he was to be the central figure. On the 
contrary, he was a very practical politician, who understood 
thoroughly the nature of the slavery cjuestion and knew 
just where and when to pick a chanck to hit it. He was a 
man of a single issue which he was always quick to see and 
skillful in handling. With the Missouri Compromise hold- 
ing in check the further extension of the system into the ter- 
ritories, he perceived that the chance for the friends of free- 
dom was to attack the institution at the seat of the nation, 
over which Congre.ss had full control and about which there 
was no iniquitous contract When he went to Congress, he 

ntroduced a bill providing for the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia. It was a moderate measure, but so 
practical that even such a stanch abolitionist as .Joshua H. 
Giddings supported it on the grounds that he was "willing to 
pay for slaves in order to save them from the southern mar- 
ket." Lincoln recognized that men hit! prejudices, th 
they were more often the victims of 'custom and tradition 
than of conscience and he always reckf)nod with these. In 

he very nature of the case, he had to oppose them, but he 
a hvavs endeavored to attack them at their weako>;t nr.int 



10 
'I'lie Abolitionists denied the right of property in slaves. 
Lincoln believed slavery was wrong, but if, by even lecogniz- 
ing the right of property in slaves, he could work the des" 
truction of slavery, he was willing and ready to do s o' 
When it came to choosing between theory and fact, he might 
respect the theory, but he would accept the fact, if by so do- 
ing he could man.age to confer a benefit. Of course his bil' 
died "on the table." He had tried his chance, but had lost 
his luck In this same thirtieth Congress he voted, he says 
forty-two times for the pi'inciples of the Wilmot Proviso 
Those principles were also submerged. From the hall of 
Congress where lie hinlsatinthe comj-jany of Alexander 
Stephens and Robert Toombs, he -went back to tlie west to 
gird himself to fight with th ur spirit and their machinations , 
before the nation 

Texas and the California country had become a part of 
tlie national di)main and the hopes of the slave power beat 
high. It had brought on the war with Alexico for the very 
purpose of destroying the effects of the compromise of 1820. 
At thi^ juncture the South seemed to hold the winning hand 
which the North would be bold indeed to call. It was a 
time that tried njen's souls — such a time as when patience 

"Rocks restlessly and scares away all rest." 
The political situation was shifting; party alignments were 
changing. Around the seething caldron of sectional strife 
aiul moral excitement, stood great men, those whose memo- 
i;cs bt^longed to the past and those whose memories would be 
linked with the future. Calhoun, tottering on the brink of the 
grave, but as aggressive as ever; Benton, on the eve of pay- 
ing the penalty for his moderate apostacy to slavery, but as 
inflexible as ever; Webster, near whom stood no prophetic 
\()ice warning him, "lieware the ides of March;" Seward and 
Chase, exponents of the HIGHER LAW; and the centr 1 
figure, Her<ry Clay, as adroit as ever, holding out the 
compromise of 185U and uttering the following solemn words; 

"1 am expecting soon to go hence and owing no responsi- 
bilitv but to niv own conscience antl to niv God." 



11 

The l:ite Dr. Xon Hoist said, "llu' hi'oail hasis on which 
the coiuproiiiise of 1<S5() rested, was the coinict ion of tlic 
i^reat majority of the people both north and south, that it 
was fair, reasonahle. aii<l pati'iotie to coino to a frion lly iiii- 
dei-standiii'^." \\'elK\stei- said on llie fateful 7(h of .Mai'ch, 
"there siiall he no ni )re a'^itation, these measures are a finali- 
ty, and we will ha\e peace.'' Stephen A Douglas pio- 
nouiU'Cd the slavery (puestion dead. Lincoln said more tru- 
ly that tilt' slaxery cpusticn could 'never he successfully 
compromised." He had dia>inosed the disease and he also 
knew the patien' He saw that imbedded as it was in one 
part of the body |>oiitic, it must need to feed upvon and final- 
ly devour the re.st of the parts. IjuI he was wise enoui^n to 
await the experience of the madicine men. 

The compromi.se of 1850 provided for the abolition of 
sla\-ery in the Distrii't of Columbia. Thus one thing was 
gained. It a'so provided for a more stringent Anti-Slavery 
Law. Lincoln saw here that the South was beginning to 
overreach; that bloodhounds and slave catchers chasing 
through the free states, would be more powerful in the cause 
of freedom than all of the abolition societies He saw too 
that the way the slavery business was arranged as to .Mexico, 
would lead to c )mplications or to unusual demands elsewhere. 
Al)ove all. he knew that the slave barons, like all oppressors, 
were not capable of mal'ing a contract so far as it related to 
their pecidiar institution. Lincoln was I'ight and Webster 
and Douglas were wrong. 

In 1854, Douglas lesurrectetl his corpse by V-'C intro- 
duction of ihe Kansas-Nebraska Hill who.se passage repealed 
the Missouri Compromise. Lincoln's hour had cc me. He had 
bided his time; noi with his usual patience to be sin-e The 
South had violated a contract — an unconscienable contract 
it is true — made in her interest and at her dictation. He .vas 
filled with indignation not unlike that wdiich came over him 
in the slave mart in New Orleans. Douglas was seeking to 
will the presidency by manacling the hands of Congress with 
in its own jurisdiction. .Adopting as his motto. ".\ hou.se 



12 

divided against itself cannot stand," Lincoln prepared to 
meet Douglas with the single issue of the right of Congress 
to legislate for tie tei'ritories on the question of slavery. 
Here Lincoln took his secoxD political position on the slavery 
question by becoming the leader of the anti-slavery party in 
the west. 

In 1850 John Jirown went to Kansas and the story of 
"Bleeding Kansas" was writ large in the Book of Free- 
dom. "When" says Arnold, ''the convulsions of the great 
national conflict began to shake the land, Kansas was the 
rock which rolled back the tide of the slave conspirators. 
All honor to Kansa*--." On ^farch 5th two years L'lter, 
the Dred Scott decision rang out over the nation "like a fire 
bell in the night." Consternation reigned in the anti-slav- 
ery camp. But the slave power had overreached at a point 
where retreat was imf-ossible. When tne first shock of con- 
sternation and shame had passed; when out of the sackcloth 
and ashes of the nation's great humiliation, the party of 
freedom awoke to the realization of the crisis, indignation 
and wrath were universal. Instinctively and prophetically, 
all eyes turned to the prairie of Illinois, where Lincoln, hav- 
ing rejected the dictum of Chief-Justice Taney, was debating 
the whole slavery question de nov •. 

The Lincoln-Douglas debates are the most memorable 
of anything of the kind in the history of party politics in the 
United States. They are too ffimili i-- to require review. 
The following considerations, however, should be born in 
mind: 

Both men were candidates before the people of Illinois 
for the United States Senatorship, and, while the great dis- 
cussion would center around the slavery question as it then 
stood, party advantage was not to be overlooked or forgot- 
ten. 

The Republican Party had reached that stage of growth 
which set men to guessing. 

Illinois had been stanch ly and uniformly Democratic 
and enthusiastically loyal to Douglas, who was at that time 
the most consjiicuous figure in national politics and the idol 



13 

of the northern wintz; of hin party. 

Lincohi, taking as his starting; point the intention of 
the fathers of the Rcpuhlic, soui;ht to confine the issne to 
the right of Congress to legishitc for the territories in cHsre- 
guril of the clamor of the shive p">\ver and tlie (Uctuin of the 
Supreme Court. 

DougUis, an acrobat in jiohtics, a shrewd cHalectician, re- 
sourcful, aware of the j^jrejuchces of the masses of the people 
antl of their careless and temporizing attitude, sought to in- 
volve and confuse the issue by extraneous and irrelevant 
matters. He repre.sented (it was to his immediate political 
interest to do so) Lincoln as seditiously rejecting the deci- 
sion of the Supreme Court, at the same time injecting into 
the debates the acid of Negro suffrage, the social equality of 
the races, amalgamation and other such political clap-trap, 
which before and since, men, anxious for political prefer- 
ment, have resorted to for the purpose of arousing prejudice 
and passion for the defeat of a just cause. The following is 
a sample of his tactics, which he employed at Ottawa, Au- 
gust 21, 1858: 

'"Mr. Lincoln, following the example and lead of all the 
little Abolition orators who go around and lecture in the 
basement of schools and churches, reads from the Declara- 
tion of Independence that all men were created equal, and 
tnen asks how can you deprive a Negro of that equality 
which God and the Declaration of Independence award to 
him? He and they maintain that Negro equality is guaran- 
teed by the laws of God, and that it is asserted in the Dec- 
laration of Independence If they think so. of course they 
have a right to say so, and so vote. I do not question Mr. 
Lincoln? conscientious belief that the Negro was made his e- 
qual, and, hence is his brother; but, for my own part, I do 
not regard the Negro as my equal, and positively deny that 
he is my brother or any kin to me whatevei*. Lincoln has 
evidently learned by heart Parson Lovejoy's catechism. He 
can repeat it as well as Farnsworth, and he is worthy of a 
medal from Father Giddings and Fred Douglass for his Abo- 
litionism. He holds that the Negro was born his equal and 



14 

yours, and that he was endowed with equality by the Al- 
mighty, and that no human law can deprive him of these 
rights which wei'e guaranteed to him by the Supreme Ruler 
of the universe." 

But Mr. Lincoln never swerved and constantly kept the 
"Little Giant" in the ring, confronted with the main issue. 
Today in certain high places, where small but shrewd minds 
are evolving schemes for stripping the Negro of his guaran- 
teed rights, there is great display of effort to prove that 
Lincoln thought the Negro unfit to enjoy ihe blessings which 
have come to him by virtue of Lincoln's wise statesmanship. 
Some, I believe, have tried to prove Job an infidel by ex- 
tracts from the great Book of Faith The men who are to- 
day praising and quoting Lincoln for the purpose of damn- 
ing the Negro will be exen less successful than such, blas- 
phemers. 

Throughout the joint contest, Lincoln stood frankly and 
fearlessly by the creed which he had expressed at the Repub- 
lican Convention of Illinois which put him forward as the 
competitor of Douglas for the Senate. The following was his 
creed : 

"Gentlemen of the Convention: If we could first know 
where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then 
better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far 
on into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the 
avowed object, and confident promise of putting an end to 
slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that 
agitation had not only not ceased, but was constantly aug- 
mented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis 
shall have been reached, and passed. 'A house divided a- 
gainst itself can not stand.' I believe this government can 
not endure, permantly, half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be desolved I do not expect the house 
to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. Either 
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, 
and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief 
that it is in course of ultimate extinction, or its advocates 
will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all 



15 

the states, old as well as now — North as Wfll as South." 

Such was hiscreod. tluM'xpiossiou of which aroused l)oth 
the North and the South This icniarkaiile speech he closed 
with tlu> followinu expression of the t'ailli in the Anti- slav- 
ery party: 

"Tlie result is not douhtful. We shall not fail — if we 
stand firm, we shall not fail. WISE COUNSELS may AC- 
CELERATE or MISTAKES delay it, hut, sooner or later, 
the victory is SURE to come." 

And yet temporarily Lincoln had failed Douglas went 
back to the Senate. The Great Arbiter of man's destiny 
was holding him in reserve. His reelection to the thirty- 
first Congress — the Congress of the compromise of 1850 — 
might have put him in great peril, and now in 185S, it was 
perhaps fortunate for him and for the cause of freedom that 
Douglas overcame liim in a popular election. 
"iiod a blfs.sin<r yfitvo, 



And s.ived the man wlio soii^-lit t > save." 



The following year John Brown went to Virginia to 
precipifale the crisis, and in the great and wonderful shad- 
ow of his mariydom, the friends of freedom and emancipa- 
tion turned to the tall, sad-faced man of ihe prairie, and into 
his hands placed with solemn confidence their standard, for 
"the hour .supreme Imd come." 

The ship of state was drifting: the issues changed and shift- 
ed like 'he gales of the nor; hern sea. Lincoln saw s'raight 
to the mark. Slavery's last desperate play was to destroy the 
Union in order to maintain itself, and Lincoln sounded the slo- 
gan for the preservation of the Union. This was his third 
political position on the slavery question. He saw through 
the tricks and "sophistical contrivances" of his time and per- 
ceived that the preservation of the Union was inseparable 
from the undoing of slavery He saw approaching over a 
rugged, dangerous, and uncertain track the CHANCE for 
which he had so long w^aited. 

On the 11th of February 1861, the day preceding his fif- 
ty second birthday, Lincoln bade a touching farewell to his 
friends and neighbors of Springfield. 'T know not," he said. 



16 

•'how soon I shall see you again. I go to assume a task more 
difficult than that which has devolved upon any other man 
since the days of Washington " The 4th of the next month, 
he stood at the eastern colonnade of the Capitol and spoke to 
the American people the most weighty words that ever fell 
from his lips. Forty years before, he had floated down the 
Mississippi on a flat-boat to New Orleans and there had re- 
solved to hit the slave system hard, if ever he got a chance. 
Was this the CHANCE? Close to him pressed the friends of 
freedom. Looking into the faces of Sumner, Seward, Chase, 
Wade and other champions of the great cause, he took the 
oath to OBEY the constitution ;ind to prkserve t'le Union, at 
the hands of the Jurist who wrote the Dred Scott decision. 
Close by also stood the spirit of discord, and in the distance 
his prophetic ear heard the mutterings of treason. 

Soon there crashed over Sumpter the volley tli^t signal- 
ized the beginning of the end of t*ie great drama. Treason 
had done its wor^. It li- d thrown down the glove whic'i 
Wiis picked up by a ch<' mpion whose strenzt'.i lay hidden 
deep in the silence of his wise and determined soul. Sad and 
trying days followed. The spirit of the people was depress- 
ed. ]\IcClellan's delays were as the chilling autumn frost; 
Bull Run was as the blast of winter. Then the giant soul of 
the nation, guided by the calm, resolute, cautious pilot that 
stood at the wheel, roused itself. You know the rest! 

But wh=it of this man of CHANCE? Would he ever see 
it? Would he ever avail himself of it? Lincoln's ordeal was 
not the reverses of the field of battle, not the sufferings of 
the march and the camp, not alone the lamentations of the 
Rachels who would not be comforted: Trying as were these, 
they were the natural accompaniments of the war The Ab- 
olitionists were losin..^ faith in him. That surely added to 
U\e tingue of Lincoln's sadness He was a man susceptible 
of the pleasure and the pain wiiich come from the trust or 
distrust of friends. Whether in the White House or in 
the cabin, man's surpremsst joy and support are the trust 
and confidence of his friends — those who would have him do 
and be the best his talents and opportunities permit. There 



17 

was i\ time in J.iiicolii's life when he seemed to feel the wimt 
of tliis all-sustaining power. "Strike", said the Abolition- 
ists: "You dare", i-eplied the l)order-states and the spirit of the 
draft riots. Horace (Jreely, ever zealous, impulsive, and 
l)lundering, published in the New York Tribune, which 
never supported him heartily, that "Prayer ofTwenfy Mil- 
lions of People", which was a pure exaggeration. But so 
eminent was the source and so critical the issue which ic 
raised, that Lincoln had to bicak the silence with the al- 
most sphinx-like utterance: 

''My paramount object is to save the Union d not either 
to save or destroy slaver}'." 

This was in August 1862 when he had already drafted the 
Proclamation of Emancipation. He knew too well the 

truth that 

"There is a tide in the ."ffair-s nf men, 

\\ liie.h, taken at the flood, leads to fortune" 
and that 

"We must take the current when it -serves, 

Or lo.se our ventures." 

This was not the flood-tide nor did the current serve. 

Lee began his march to the North. Lincoln went to live 
at Soldiers' Home. He made a solemn vow to God that if 
Lee was driven back, he would issue the proclamation of 
freedom. The battle of Antietam registered the flood of the 
tide. His CHANCE had come. He struck the blow and 
"hit hard." Freedom was accomplished. The patient man, 
the wise, farseeing man, the practical, politician, took his 
FOURTH and last political position on the question of slavery, 
and settled the agitation forever. 

Lincoln's act was the most eventful step in the march of 
freedom ever taken. It was an incident of the world's great- 
est war — a war between two sections of the English race over 
the enslavement of a different race, the like of which had 
never occured before in the history of the world. And the 
act was done by a descendant of the Mayflower, who there- 
by became the most illustrious man of his age 

"The klndlv-earnest, brave, foresreinj; man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praiso.not blame. 
New birth of our new soil, the first American.' 



18 

Nearly a half century has elapsed since this most ini- 
pori ant act. of the nineteenth cent ury was performed. The 
intervening years have been marked by marvelous changes 
and achievements. The one and only great issue that for 
t he previous seventy-five years had divided the people and 
threatened I he success of ihe attempt to errect on these 
.-chores the greatest repiil)lic of free-men in the history of the 
world is settled. Thaf. issue is now dead beyond the pos- 
sibility of man, or a party of men or any section to revive, 
and they whose lives and conduct are influenced by either 
the fears or the hopes of its resurrection are groping among 
t he sepulchers. Its passing marked one of those moral tri- 
umphs which in political history lift mankind in respect 
to ideas and government to a plane from which there can 
he no descent. From such a plane the world has always for- 
got the old strifes and proceeded to blaze new paths of 
progress. 

From thirty odd prostrate and almost shattered states, 
(jur nation has become a world power,an empire. Its flag and 
its influence are dominant the world over. From twenty-five 
millions of people, broken and distressed, yet cemented and 
welded together by a cleansingfire, we have grown to nearly a 
hundred millions composed of varied races, all loyal to the 
flag and its institutions. Our expansion has been too rapid 
for measurement. When in 1860 began the contest which 
was to clear the stage for future achievement and develop- 
ment, there were but little more than thirty thousand miles 
of railway in uur borders and our commercial methods were 
almost as simple as the alphabet. Today we have more than 
three hundred thousand miles of railway, almost twice as 
great as that of Great Britian, European and Asiatic Rus- 
sia, Germany,and France combined, and gigantic commercial 
and financial forces which give rise to conditions and prob- 
lem^^ which our generation will not be able to meet and solve. 

The people upon whom Lincoln's act bestowed the her- 
itage of citizenship privil:jges and modern opportunities have 
increa.sed from four to ten millions. They have become a tenth 



19 

of the population of avast and mighty oinpire -Init imt a 
submer<;je(.l tenth. Startinii; with no capital Imt pn>vei-ty. '\'^\\)- 
rance, the habits of toil and the iiopes of chiidion. tlioy h.i\<' 
piled up more than a billion dollars of wealth, operat inn n('arl\ 
a million farms which aggre:;ate nearly fifty m':!li)n aci-o-; an I 
have grown in intelli<j;ence s) that about sixty out of every 
hundred can read and write. They are partici|)anis in and 
agents of the greate.st government of the world. They share 
in common with the millions of men of the races of the woild 
the great and solemn privilege of helping to do the world's 
w'ork, solve the world's problem^ and control the world's des- 
tiny — proud of the heritage of American citizenshij). If at 
times they feel that they have not yet attained, let them re- 
member that neither has the world, neither havetho.se who 
have a thousand 5'ears the start. And let them not become dis- 
couraged and bitter and out of touch with the pradical and 
hopeful forces that make for progress. 

Hegel has said "the History of the world is noi ihe thea- 
tre of happiness. The pages of happiness are blank page.-; in i' . ' " 
The issue of the Civil War in the United States migh' have been 
expected to usher in that period of hirmony, when the nation 
might find itself in the condition if glorious achievement, « f 
universal Freedom realized, of the Union preserved and so 
might have enjoyed that condiiion. Liberty however is a 
costly boon. Etern.d vigilance is the price of i . Not since 1 he 
act of Lincoln h isit been possible for ihe guardians of freed mi 
to lay aside their vigilance. The emancipation of he Xcgro 
from chattle slavery marks simply the shifting of the issue in 
the great task of lif ling thence to the "awful verge of man- 
hood." Never in the his'ory • f tlie race has the cause for vi- 
gilance been greater than ii is 'o day. Within — among our- 
selves — are great duties, which must, be fulfilled, grea" prob- 
lems, the fact.ors of which are ourselves; common aspirations. 
thereaUzcili >n of which requires, and will c intinue tn req ilie. 
the highest form of union and accord; ihe consciousness of a 
common aim and a common destiny, yet differences nf msthod 
which call for the boardest charity and the largest patience. 
Without are strong, aggresive and resourceful forces, boastful- 



20 

ly hut, \M inly threatening to undo wliat has been done, or to 
defeat further achievement. 

Within' too — among ourselves, are dangers, born of ambi- 
tion, jealousies, vanities, and honest stupidity, which cause 
us often to bend the knee, to bear the back, and even give h- 
Wriy the game. But both within and without are great 
beneficent forces, as Wadsworfhputs it, ''great allies, " which 
are making for real and lasting progress in the direction of 
right and justice. 

Let us then have the sense to cherish, nurture, and hold 
fast to the strong radical forces that, rise up within and with- 
out to help us: the judgement to respect the worth of the 
calm, slow but safe, conservative agencies that work to the 
same end; and the wisdom and the foresight to see that op- 
p'lsing powers will inevitably overreach. Above all let us 
not dally. 

"From this day forth we .s'lall Icnow, 
That in ourselves on:' salety mast be sought; 
That by our own right hands it must be wrought; 
That we must stand unpropped, or be laid low." 

Yet Lincoln's great act will have been performed in vain 
if we fail to measure up to the full stature of American citizen- 
ship which it made possible. The obligations and duties 
which we are to meet and perform are the same as those 
which are common to all citizens of the Republic. There 
are, it is true, certain duties and probleixis that, relate in a 
peculiar sense 1 o us from whom the inheritance was long with- 
held, and the.se must be frankly, sanely ar.d heroically met 
and solved; but because of these we must not ourselves be- 
come blind and, above all, we must not suffer others to blind 
us, to the weightier duties and the larger opportunities of A- 
rnerican citizenship and American life. 

Nothing touching the pre.sent life and the future destiny 
of the Republic can be foreign lo us. Any arbitrary attempt 
by cither statute, custom or concert to alienate us from the 
common current of American life and the common endeavors 
of Americari citizenship can never find acquiesence among us. 
By \irtue of birth, burdens, training and ideas, we are an in- 



21 

legr.il |):irt of a cdmixisitf whole, and such wc must ever he. 
not by hoastin^Miul loutl protesting — though cahu, strong 
Htid niuilyprot(^st should not be lacking when occasion de- 
mands — but by our lives, our services and our ideals. 

We art; Americans, proud of tha achievemenis and in- 
stitutions which exall our country, deploring whatever in 
the present or in the past detracts from its glory, and moved 
by the incentives which pr mipt all w-ho live under the pro- 
tection of the stars and stripes. We emphatically insist up- 
on the truth of the fact stated more than fifty ye:irs ag) by 
the late veneral:)le Alexander Crummell — a. fact even nfiore 
true now than then: — "Our civilization, in its elements, is 
that of the world's Christendom; and it .<iprings upward, in 
all its It^gitimite lendenci^'s, unerringly as the rustling pin- 
ions of a returning ang-"! to the skins. Our language is that 
of the foremost men of all the earth; and it makes as ouk 
inheritance, although of other blood and race than theirs, the 
large common si^nse, the strong practicalness, the pure and 
lofy morals, the genuine philtnthropy, the noble wisdom, 
and all the treasures of thought and genius, with which En- 
gland has blessed the world: — 

"We speak tlie languao^e Stiakespear spake; 

The faitli and morals hold wiiicli Milton held." 
Andsn, we face hopefully the future, imbued wiili the 
spirir of him, the centennial of whose birth we in common 
with our f-'llow citizi-'ns throughout the l-^ngth and breadth 
of the Republic commemorate today, who in all the crises of 
his life 

■'Knew to l)ide liis time. 

Still patient in hi.s faith sublime, 

Till the wise vears decide." 



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